


my love, your little light, is alive

by MatildaSwan



Category: Holby City
Genre: Accidental Engagement, Canon compliant Bernie/Alex, Extreme Avoidance Tactics, F/F, Fix-It, our favourite disaster lesbian at it again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22369213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MatildaSwan/pseuds/MatildaSwan
Summary: Just how far will an anxious individual go to avoid confrontation?One woman attempts to find out; proceeds to blow up entire life in the process!
Relationships: Serena Campbell/Bernie Wolfe
Comments: 27
Kudos: 105





	my love, your little light, is alive

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Anxiety, Lots of anxiety. minor injuries. 
> 
> would it really be a bonnie original without a kate bush title?
> 
> love and thanks to Jess and Reg for expanding my ability to describe anxiety symptoms, Myfi for cheering me on, and Jess again for betaing <3

She wishes she’d remembered to put the ring away, in hindsight; simply hadn’t pulled it out of hiding in the first place, if she’s truly honest. 

But it’d been a bad day of too many failures and not enough successes, and it made her think of home, of Holby. Made her miss the endless stream of broken bodies that sailed through her doors to be shipped out again, good as new, with no war zone waiting just outside.

Made her think of Serena. 

So she’d slunk away from the barracks and hidden herself in the privacy of her command tent. Cracked open a bottle of whisky, and pulled a dented, much loved jewellery box from its usual hiding place at the bottom of her sock drawer.

In it, the ring she never intended to keep, couldn’t bear to leave behind: a silver band and a shining stone snug in a bed of velvet. 

Serena’s ring. 

She sits and stews and sobs. Lets it all leech out of her now so it won’t infect her tomorrow. Falls asleep, tear stained and fully clothed.

The box on the table, wide open

*

She wakes to the smell of coffee. Smiles before she even opens her eyes, because she knows the first thing she’ll see is Alex beaming down at her. 

She rubs the wrinkles from her face, feet barely touching the ground. 

Alex rustles to her left as the first sip of coffee hits her system. 

‘What’s this?’ Alex asks.

There’s something in her voice that gives Bernie pause. She slowly lowers her mug to the floor.

‘What’s what?’ Maybe, deep down, she already knew.

‘This!’ Alex repeats, spinning around, her face as bright as it’s ever been, the ring box snug in her hand, in front of her chest. Pressed against her heart. 

Bernie’s body rushes white static, pit of her stomach falling through the floor. She’s forgotten how to breathe. 

‘It’s a ring,’ Bernie stammers, trying to keep the panic from her voice, from her face. 

‘An engagement ring!’ Alex squeals, pulling the ring from the foam.

The box falls, forgotten, to the ground. 

‘Yes, Bern! Of course I’ll marry you.’ She slips it onto her finger, pulls Bernie into a fierce hug. Only lets her go to kiss her thoroughly.

Bernie holds her hips in the palm of her hand, clinging for dear life; her body feels foreign, like it no longer fits.

‘You will?’ Her voice sounds so far away. ‘That’s good.’

‘Oh Bernie,’ Alex laughs, like she hasn’t a care in the world. ‘I had no idea you were planning this.’ She marvels at the jewel on her  digitus annularis . ‘And you almost got my size just right!’

Almost, but not quite. 

‘You know,’ she adds thoughtfully, as she’s putting the ring back in the box, tucking it away for safekeeping. ‘I never thought you’d ask.’

Bernie smiles wanly, ducks her head, hides her eyes. 

Doesn’t have the heart to correct her. 

*

She’d have thought being engaged might have changed things with Alex, but they don’t. Beyond accepting the occasional congratulations, and Alex spending more time in her bunk, things are basically the same. 

As long as she doesn’t think about it all too much. That’s when her skin starts to tingle and her stomach churns, when her ears start ringing and her lungs seize, heart pounding while her hands shake: all luxuries she cannot afford. 

Not here, not now. Not when lives are at stake. 

As long as she keeps herself in the here, the right now, she’s fine. 

Her hands never tremble in the present tense. 

And long engagements are common enough, it’s nothing that anyone will give a second thought. They’ve got months, maybe even years, before it’s actually time to settle down. 

She’s got  _ ages _ . 

Time enough to sort herself out, to work through the jittering, the restless static, bile in her throat and a racing mind. Time to prepare herself for another break up. She can’t handle one right now, she knows that; everything’s too raw, too close to the surface, ripe to be picked apart. 

She’ll break if it happens again.

But she can love what she has, for what it is. While it still is. 

She’s earned that, at least. 

*

It’s absolutely fine until Alex start making wedding plans. Starts talking about the end of their tour and where they’ll live when they get back, drafting guest lists and seating plans. Wanting to nail down a date.

It’s too much, too soon. Bernie’s ears ring and her fingers tingle, blind panic ripping at her skin, and she doesn’t know what to do. So she digs in her heels, fobs Alex off as much as possible. 

It works for a few weeks, gets her through a few arguments. Nothing dissimilar to her engagement to Marcus, if she thinks about it. It would be concerning, if she actually wanted to be here.

But it isn’t. And it works for her just fine.

Until it doesn’t. 

‘It’s like you don’t even want to get married!’ Alex shouts at her one evening, after Bernie tried to avoid looking through the bridal magazines, just delivered. She suggested drinks with the team and, failing that, an early night.

It really had been a very long day. 

Bernie splutters, too overtired to think clearly. If she’d been in a better state she might have taken the opening, might have stepped through that door. 

She doesn’t. 

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she snaps, ‘Of course I do. What, you think we’d be here if I didn’t?’

They never did talk about the fact that Bernie hadn’t actually asked. 

‘Well, good. That’s good.’ Alex says, seeming to calm down. ‘Glad that’s settled.’

Bernie frowns.  _ Just like that? _

‘You coming to bed?’ Alex asks, ‘I believe you wanted an early night.’ Holds out a hand, like nothing’s wrong.

‘I’ll, ah, I’ll be over in a minute,’ Bernie promises, picking up a magazine and lofting it about. ‘Got some thinking to do.’

‘Don’t think too long.’ Alex smiles coyly, a tempting promise. ‘I’ll be waiting.’

‘I won’t.’ 

And she doesn’t. Because there’s only one way out of this, now she’s royally cocked things up. She has to handle this in tried and true, gung-ho Wolfe style: tackle the problem head on, leave no lingering doubt, leave nothing to the imagination. 

She has to fake her own death. 

*

Not the explosion, that’s real enough. But the missing in action, that bit she fabricates. Sees an opening and jumps through it feet first—well, slides, really, out of the rubble and into the sunlight on the other side. 

It’s chaos, debris everywhere. Dirt in her eyes, choking her throat; the skin over her forearm is scraped raw. But her team are nearby, trained and at the ready, if any stragglers were injured. The camp was practically empty anyway, most units out on reconnaissance that afternoon. She’s only stayed behind for stocktake.

Her ears ring, but her heart beats steady; a weight, gone from her chest. 

This is what she’s been waiting for.

So she does what wolves have always done best. 

She runs. 

*

She would like to avoid being court marshalled, if she can help it. Seems a bit too much to be dealing with at this delicate stage, with her life in shambles across the board. 

She knows they’ll find her tags eventually, that she’ll be MIA before that. But the camp was a warzone when she left it and there’s time enough, a few weeks, a fortnight at least. 

Plenty of time to get back to England and sort everything out there. Pretend she lost her memory, wandered the desert till she found civilization, something,  _ anything _ . She’ll figure it all out later. 

Right now, she just has to get back to Holby, to her family. 

If she can do that, then everything will be alright. 

*

Everything is decidedly  _ not _ alright when she finally sets her feet down stateside. 

Because they found her tags in the rubble before she’d even boarded her flight, took that as a sign and declared her dead.

Properly dead.

She didn’t think it would end up like this. She can only hope Serena found the letter—the one inside the journal cover, the letter she wrote the night after Alex found the ring to explain everything, to see if she could make any sense of it to herself. 

She has to hope she finds it. 

*

She doesn’t. Like everything else in Bernie’s  _ bloody _ life, this goes pear shaped too. 

Serena has the diary, she’s sure of it. Alex wouldn’t hold on to that, not when Bernie left such clear instructions that the only person besides herself that will ever read about this section of her life is the woman she shared it with. 

She knows Alex loves her well enough to give her that. 

But she knows, as soon as she gets to the outskirts of Wyvern, praying her children haven’t already moved on, that Serena hasn’t found the letter. Knows it in the marrow of her bones. 

She hopes that Serena at least read the diary. Didn’t throw it in the fire the second she got it; hadn’t locked it in a drawer, never to see the light of day again. Hopes, now she’s apparently properly actually dead, that hearing how much she was loved till the very end will be of some comfort. 

Until Bernie can explain everything, at least. 

This is why she likes trauma, she thinks as she walks up to Charlotte’s front door, sun setting behind her. Being in the middle of everything when it all goes wrong means being where you can actually do something about it. 

She doubts she’ll ever be able to fix this. 

But still, she has to try.

One door at a time. 

*

It’s not Charlotte who answers, but Cameron. 

He stands there, gawping. Time stretches long as the door stays swung open wide. 

He blinks owlishly. Whispers, softly, ‘Mum?’

She launches herself over the threshold, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, crushing through to his bones. 

He clings, just as hard, sobs into her shoulder, grip never loosening. 

She resolves, in that moment, to never leave again. 

Then footsteps pad up the hall 

‘Cam, what’s taking so long?’ A soft, curious voice asks, ‘Who is it?’

The footsteps freeze as mother and son pull apart, both swiping tears from their cheeks. Bernie steps into the hallway light as Cameron finally shuts the door. 

Charlotte gapes at them, eyes wide. White with fright.

Then drops like a stone, down to the floor.

*

Fifteen minutes later, they settle in the living room: pot of tea, three mugs, no milk. Three sugars in Charlotte’s. 

‘It’ll help,’ Bernie soothes, patting the back of her daughter’s shaking hand. Her insides are much the same, for all her grip is firm, unflinching. 

She sits back into the couch, solid against her back; cradles her own cup in both hands, pressed against her chest. She looks over at her children. 

She’s got them back, they’ve got _ her _ back.

It’s almost everything she wants. 

She sighs. ‘I expect you want to know what happened.’

Two pairs of deep brown eyes blink at her. Stupid question, she knows.  _ Obviously. _

‘Well, it’s umm. Actually, it’s about Alex.’

Cameron frowns; Charlotte nods. Neither interject. 

‘Have you spoken to her?’ 

This time Cameron nods and Charlotte frowns. 

‘Good, good. We, that is to say—’

‘She said you were engaged.’ 

Cameron hums. ‘I knew you were together, but I didn’t know you were getting married.’

‘We weren’t.’

Charlotte grimaces, brow furrowing. ‘Then why would she say—’

‘We were. Engaged, I mean. But I was never going to marry her.’

The both hum, nodding slowly. Charlotte sits forward, mug on the table, feet on the floor. Pours them all another cup, looking at Bernie expectantly. 

‘She—she found the ring. I’d left it on the table, stupidly, forgotten to put it away again. She thought it was for her. She was so excited, so happy—like she’d always wanted it. I didn’t know what to say, how to stop it, how to  _ fix _ it without breaking her heart. And I wasn’t ready to lose her, not after—’

Bernie lapses into silence. She plays with the handle of her mug, runs a fingertip over a chapped knuckle. 

‘It’s alright, mum,’ Cam assures her, ‘We get it. That bit anyway.’

She smiles, feels the skin around her eyes soften with gratitude. So perceptive, the pair of them. 

‘I, I thought it would be better to play along, for a while. To have something stable. And every time I thought of telling her my throat would close up and my skin’d itch and my hands’d go clammy. I could never think properly and I’d just, panic, I suppose.’

‘Mum?’ She looks up to find Charlotte staring thoughtfully at her. ‘Did you get engaged to someone you didn’t want to marry because you were too anxious to break up with them?’

‘Oh,’ she says, ‘Um.’

It’s so simple when you put it like that. 

‘Apparently.’

'Jesus, mum!’ 

‘I’m sorry!’

‘We thought you were dead!’

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ she whispers, ‘That wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to be back here before—I didn’t think it would happen so fast.’

Charlotte stands abruptly, moves to sit beside her. 

‘But you’re here now,’ she says, bundling Bernie’s hand into her lap and holding tight. 

Cameron moves to her other side, slings an arm over her shoulder. ‘That has to matter more, right?’

Bernie smiles, blinking back tears. It’s so much more than she’d hoped. 

‘Wait,’ Cameron ponders a few minutes later, ‘So what was the ring for?’

‘Hm?’ 

There’s a soft knock at the door. None of them move.

‘If it wasn’t for Alex, why did you have a ring at all?’

She frowns over at Cam, vaguely registers some rustling at the end of the hall. 

_ Isn’t it obvious? _

‘Serena,’ she says. 

‘Yes?’ says a voice, coming closer, into the living room. ‘Cam, I know you said it was just a fall, but I wanted to check—’

Serena breaks off, stopping in her tracks as three sets of brown eyes turn and stare. 

‘Bernie?’ she whispers, low and choked. The house keys fall from her limp hand, jangling on the ground. ‘But you’re,’ she starts, but never finishes.

Because she falls to the ground, too. 

The second dead faint of the night. 

*

‘It’s a good thing I’m still a doctor,’ Bernie jokes, some time later, as Serena slowly opens her eyes. ‘That could have been a nasty fall.’ 

It’s just the two of them in an empty flat—the children made themselves scarce, after Cam dropped a few truths about Serena’s grief during Bernie’s absence, while Charlotte fished around for her set of Serena’s spares, proming to give them some privacy—Serena laid out on her fainting couch, Bernie kneeling beside her.

‘Sorry, I’ll be more careful to fall lightly next time the love of my life returns from the bloody grave,’ Serena says glibly, then freezes as the confession catches up to her. ‘I mean, I don’t mean. I—’

‘It’s all right, Serena,’ Bernie soothes. ‘I understand.’

‘You do? Good, because I don’t,’ she says, her face a symphony of surprise and confusion and relief and, finally, outrage. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I might ask you the same thing,’ Bernie points out, settling beside her. She bumps Serena’s knee with her own. 

‘Cam called,’ she explains, ‘Said he needed to look after Lottie tonight and asked if someone could cover his shift.’ She looks away, stares at a mark on the carpet. ‘I, I worried, what with you and the funeral and everything, that it wasn’t just a fall.’

Bernie’s heart breaks, just a little. ‘So you thought you’d make a housecall?’

Serena looks over forlornly, eyes wide and shining ‘What else was I going to do?’

‘Thank you.’ Her hands twitch; she wants to reach out. ‘You didn't have to.’

‘Of course I did, Bernie. They’re your children.’

Bernie’s heart stutters in her chest, not the death knell she’s been suffering since she left Holby, but butterflies fluttering on the breeze. 

‘Bernie, how are you here? They sent someone. We had a  _ funeral. _ ’

‘Ha,’ Bernie laughs. ‘It seems reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.’

Serena groans, swats at her arm, lips curled in a tiny smile.

Bernie smiles back, the first in months.

Serena’s face falls again, but there’s a glimmer of hope in her tear-filled eyes. 

‘So you’re really here?’ 

‘I am. You can pinch me if you like?’ she offers, and Serena does just that. 

Bernie yelps, clutching her bicep. ‘Ow!’

‘Good, serves you right,’ she huffs, pursing her lips, lapsing into silence. 

Eventually, she glances over at Bernie.

‘So, you’re back.’

‘I am, yes,’ she agrees, voice somber once more. ‘I came home,’ she says, finally reaching over to rest a hand on Serena’s thigh. ‘To you.’

‘For me?’ Serena repeats, her voice breaking. Her finger twitches, like she wants to touch. She shakes her head, just a fraction. ‘But Alex said—’

‘I know, I know. She wasn’t lying, it just wasn’t. It wasn’t what it seemed.’ Bernie looks at her imploringly. ‘It was all a bit of a mess really. I’ll explain another time, I promise.’

‘Okay. Okay,’ Serena says, nodding, sniffling. Her shoulders sag and she finally reaches out, cradles Bernie’s hand in her own. She turns her palm over, tangles their hands together. Solid and real beside her. 

‘So you’re not dead.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘And you’re back. For good?’

Bernie smiles, tiny and bright. ‘Yes.’ 

‘For me?’ Serena asks again, voice thick and rasping and full of hope. 

‘For you,’ Bernie reiterates. She’ll say it as many times as she needs to, to get them through this. ‘If you’ll have me.’

‘Of course,’ she says in awe, with longing. Like she still can’t believe her eyes. Throws out her arms, pulls Bernie close, holds her tight. 

‘Promise you won’t leave again?’ Serena mumbles into her shoulder, tear soaking through Bernie’s shirt. 

‘Never,’ she promises fiercely. Draws back, reaching up to cup Serena’s face. ‘You’re stuck with me, Campbell.’ She dips her head, whispers against her lips, ‘For eternity.’


End file.
